Checkup: Health news in brief

Published 1:30 pm, Tuesday, June 11, 2013

'Tummy time' benefit unclear for infants

Putting infants to sleep on their backs, recommended since the early 1990s, has helped reduce the prevalence of sudden infant death syndrome. But because of concerns that the practice might cause delays in motor development — as measured by the age at which babies roll over — parents were encouraged to give their infants "tummy time" when awake to help build upper-body strength.

Now a new study, published in May in the journal Early Human Development, suggests that tummy time may be irrelevant.

Canadian researchers compared 1,114 infants born from 1990 to 1992, just before the "back to sleep" campaign began, with 351 infants born 20 years later. They found no difference between the two groups in the age at which prone to supine or supine to prone rolling began, or in the order in which those behaviors appeared.

The lead author, Johanna Darrah, a pediatric physical therapist at the University of Alberta, said, "the back to sleep campaign has not adversely affected motor development. Motor development happens."

Designated drivers also designated drinkers

A new study suggests that many designated drivers do not refrain from drinking.

The tests were conducted six times over a three-month period, and the results were not encouraging. Only 65 percent of the designated drivers showed no blood alcohol content, 17 percent registered 0.02 percent to 0.049 percent, and 18 percent measured 0.05 percent or higher.

The study, published in the July issue of The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, sampled a group of people whose average age was 28 and who were not diverse ethnically or racially, so the results cannot be generalized to other populations.

Dementia drugs good for the heart, too

A new observational study suggests that drugs commonly used to treat Alzheimer's disease may have another benefit: preventing heart attacks and premature death.

Swedish researchers reviewed records on 7,073 Alzheimer's patients taking cholinesterase inhibitors. Over an average of 17 months of follow-up, 831 of the patients had a heart attack or died.

Researchers found that taking cholinesterase inhibitors reduced both the death rate and the heart attack rate by about 35 percent. Moreover, the risk decreased further as dosage increased. The study appeared in The European Heart Journal.